Eligible from GFF August 5

Welcome to August and the annual August 'fall-like days' just prior to the typical 'state fair heat.'  We hope everyone is hanging in there!

Quick news (details lower in this email):

#1. Upcoming Schedule

#2. Crop and Poultry Report

#3. Farmer Update

#4. Spray Season

#5. New Blog Material

#6. What if it Rains?

#7. Egg Carton Guidelines

#8. 2020 Farm Credit Program

#9. Welcome to New Members

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Waverly: Wednesday August 5  5:00-5:30pm St Andrew's parking lot

                                                       5:45-6:00pm Yogi Life parking area

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New Delivery Method: Please maintain appropriate physical distancing.  We will place your order into a tray and put it on our table.  Once we step away, place your order in your bag/box you bring.  then set the tray in the 'dirty' pile next to the table.                                                  

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Available to members (order by noon Wednesday!):
    eggs - $3.50/dozen (limit 2 doz - we will try to fill 1 doz for all orders first, unless you order for two families)

    green beans $3/pound

    lettuce $2/head

    golden beets $2/pound

   zucchini $1 each

   garlic $2 head

   frozen broiler chicken $3.60/pound (avg 4-5 pounds)

   basil $1 bunch (about the size of our oregano bunches - perfect for a vase)

   oregano $1 bunch

   eggplant $1 each

   carrots $3/pound

     

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THE GFF NEWS

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1. Upcoming Schedule

• August 5 - Waverly (St Andrew's and Yogi Life)
• August 13 - Cedar Falls (Jorgensen Plaza)
• August 19 - Waverly (St Andrew's and Yogi Life)
• August 27 - Cedar Falls (Jorgensen Plaza)
• Sept 2 - Waverly (St Andrew's and Yogi Life)
• Sept 10 - Cedar Falls (Jorgensen Plaza)
• Sept 15 (Tuesday)- Fresh Broiler Chicken delivery (anticipated - no egg/veg delivery this week)
• Sept 22 (Tuesday) - Waverly (St Andrew's and Yogi Life)
  

2. Crop & Poultry Report

The tomatoes are starting to ripen on some of the vines, so we may begin offering tomatoes on our lists.  Peppers are in a similar spot.  When we have smaller amounts of a crop, we may offer items such as these to people on a 'name out of a hat' basis.  It just makes no sense to offer tomatoes and have orders for 30 pounds when we know we will only have four pounds on a given delivery date. 

The second succession of green beans are really getting going now, so you might notice we are offering beans in one pound increments (rather than a half pound) and at a better price.  This is a reflection of the supply increasing as we start harvesting the Jade green beans to go with the already producing Providers.  Speaking of legumes (we were?) we are going to put in one more high tunnel succession of green beans and we are also going to try a Fall snow pea planting.

On the 'not so good' side of things, we will not have bulb onions this year.  We will not bore you with the whole story here.  But, we started by making the mistake of buying an onion cleaner to help us prepare onions for sale after harvest.  We should have known that investing in specialized equipment would doom that crop.  We are now looking to sell that piece of equipment so we can have onions in the future.

3. Farmer Update

Every day has its ups and downs.  Sound familiar?  It is something I think everyone can relate to.  The weather over the last few days has been absolutely gorgeous.  Tammy and I LOVE green beans (and we have plenty of them to eat).  Peaches are in-season.  Yo-Yo Ma and company released Not Our First Goat Rodeo.  So, things are pretty good in many respects.

On the other hand, we are in the familiar position that we have much to do and less time to do it in.  Spray season has been taxing, trips to see doctors have eaten up valuable time and energy and world events wear on us all. 

This is not so much an update on the two of us as it is a recognition that we still have the ability to exert some control on where our focus is.  As always, we are a work in progress.  For the next twenty or so hours, we are going to focus on harvesting some quality food and getting it to some quality people.  We look forward to greeting you in person tomorrow!

4. Spray Season

Spray season won't officially end for a week or so.  We admit that we are a little less on edge now that we've gotten into early August, but it is still important that EVERYONE who witnesses off-target spray should report it to the Pesticide Bureau in Iowa.  Make note of the time, date and location as well as any additional details so you can report accurately.

Neither of us likes to force beliefs or issues on other people.  But, we are even more adamant that we want people to fully understand what it means to be a victim of chemical trespass without having to experience it themselves.  Even more important, we are hopeful we can make some real differences.  For example, Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) and Rep. Joe Neguse (D-CO) introduced the “Protect America’s Children from Toxic Pesticides Act,” which would update U.S. pesticide rules to be more in line with more health-protective laws in other countries. We will try to use this space in our weekly newsletters to periodically inform you of things that just might address the problem. We think we can do that and respect different viewpoints and the general intent of this newsletter to cover farm news and offer good food.

5. New blog material for you

• People have been enjoying the blog featuring the Inspector and his feline wisdom so I am sharing it here again.
• There have been positive comments about a blog that shares our adventures in capturing a bee swarm at the farm.
• Are you in a pictures only mood?  Try some more day lilies.
• We graded ourselves on our 2020 farm classes in this blog post.
• And, we took a look at our plans for the rest of the season in today's post.
  

6. What if it Rains?

We have been fortunate that rain has not been in the equation during deliveries for some time now.  Rain should not be a problem tomorrow either!  However, we are considering options for the days when the weather is a bit less amenable to the current delivery method.

Option 1 will be to revert back to our early season method where we place orders into vehicles so you do not have to dampen yourselves unnecessarily. 

Option 2 will be to either use a portable shelter (pop up tent) or use overhangs at our delivery locations.  There is a small overhang at St Andrew's that may serve and there is the nice area near Jorgensen Plaza that we may also end up using.  At present, there is not a good option for easy shelter with appropriate physical distancing at Yogi Life or Hansen's Outlet. 

As always, we will keep our eyes on the weather and inform you if we have to make modifications to our normal delivery patterns to account for what Mother Nature brings us.

7. Egg Carton Guidelines

We are grateful for the volume of egg cartons that have come our way in recent weeks.  Thank you so much for being kind and helping us re-use resources!

We have had a few questions about what egg cartons we will accept and I thought this would be a good time to address them.

• we will only take chipboard cartons, no styrofoam or plastic.
• we will take cartons for large to jumbo eggs, smaller sizes need not apply
• 12 egg cartons are wonderful, we are not using 18 egg sized cartons at this time

And finally, if an egg broke in the carton or something else happened to seriously dirty a carton, please don't give it to us.  While we aren't unhappy about doing the recycling ourselves, these cartons can actually remove more than one carton from the re-use option.  If the carton doesn't look like something you would be happy to receive new and clean eggs in, then do not give it to us.  Recycle it as you normally would.

8. 2020 Pre-Paid Farm Credit Program

We will run the system in $50 increments.  In other words, you can purchase a minimum of $50 of farm credit at a time.  We will cap the maximum amount of credit at $200 and you can refill your farm credits at any point.

Like the CSA program, this gives you the advantage of not having to pull out money at each delivery.  Instead, we will have a ledger with tracking for your current credit balance.  This also provides us with some working capital to start the season.  Also, like the CSA program, we will give participants better pricing and opportunities than those who might prefer to 'pay as they go.'

A major difference this year is that farm credits can be used for ANY farm product the Genuine Faux Farm offers.  If you buy farm credits, you can apply them to purchasing meat chickens, vegetables, eggs or any other thing we offer this year.

We are accepting purchases of credits now and throughout the season.

9. Welcome!

If you are new to this email newsletter for the Genuine Faux Farm, we would like to welcome you.  If you are an 'old hand,' we want you to feel welcome too - but we were gently reminded that we need to introduce people a bit more to the system.

The basics are as follows:

  - we deliver once per week - alternating between Waverly and Cedar Falls locations.

  - Waverly is on Wednesdays

  - Cedar Falls is on Thursdays

  - anyone with farm credits can order from either location, you just have to arrange to get what you order.

  - to order, you only need to respond to this email - sent the day prior to the delivery.

  - a "gentle reminder" email is sent the day of the delivery.  This email confirms that we have received orders by listing those from whom we have received orders.

 - delivery instructions will be in this email each week.  Please pay attention as circumstances may require a change.

Be Well!

Rob & Tammy